Free with every pint: how about a boot in the groin of the pub chalkboard?
|
Version 0 of 1. As a Guardian contributor, there are many things that grind my gears: rampant inequality, the prohibitive cost of quinoa and, of course, the consequences of rewilding in Hebden Bridge. But if one thing is guaranteed to raise my blood pressure faster than you can say neoliberalism, it’s the “humorous” pub chalkboard. The tedious, predictable, cynical, unimaginative, intellectually vacuous cult of the pub chalkboard has become a national problem, and I have reached the end of my tether. Every day on social media ever more specimens seek me out, cynically concocted to maximise exposure. When I walk down the street they sidle up smugly, and I am transformed into a senselessly furious punk. I want to buy a pair of Dr Martens just so I can kick one in its smug, intentionally Instagramable groin, making them all topple like dominoes as I snarl and spit and swear. Related: Wackaging: do we want our food to talk back? If I see one more sign proclaiming that “Unattended children will be given an espresso and a free kitten” (or maybe a puppy), one more “tongue in cheek” aside about the soup of the day being whiskey, one more patronising wisecrack about the pub being a “husband creche”, one more hashtag or pun or hand-drawn emoji – I will lie down on the pavement and never get up again, ossifying over time into a speed bump to be stepped over by estate agents and squished by Bugaboos. There I will lie for ever, flinching every time anyone utters the words “personal brand”. Mostly I will be motionless. Inside I will be screaming. I have long accepted that we now worship at the altar of advanced capitalism, but deliberate wackiness is an unforgivable sin. A colleague of mine has long highlighted the hideous tyranny of “wackaging”, and the humorous pub chalkboard is the natural successor to the smug, pseudo-friendly badinage of the Innocent smoothie bottle. Except it’s being brought into your community – or more specifically, the only place that ever felt like home: your local. To compare it to the London tube tradition of providing commuters with an offbeat “thoughts of the day” board is to bestow a grave injustice upon underground staff, who are not trying to cunningly expand their customer base through weak humour, but merely make your miserable existence slightly more bearable as you scuttle through the fetid, airless cavern beneath a city in which all hope has shrivelled. It is focus-grouped spontaneity. It is Coldplay, Wagamama, rooftop bars, bragging about your spiralizer You could argue that pubs are trying to do the same (with alcohol), but you’d be entirely wrong. They just want to be internet famous, which is the end goal of all human endeavour now. That would be OK, I suppose, if they were honest enough to admit that, no, it’s not “the unexpected outlet for creativity in the 21st century”, but a cynical marketing tactic. And while some of these bar staff may be “secretly gifted comedy writers”, I can guarantee that they are not giving their best material away to their paymasters. They are underpaid, overworked and unappreciated as it is, and are now expected to cough up unoriginal witticisms as well. Good comedy is transgressive, close to the bone, boundary-pushing. It does not come about because John the bar manager has decided that “we need to do one of those funny blackboards like the Bull had the other day. Maybe something about there being a free air guitar with every pint? The punters will bloody love it” – while a 19-year-old waitress is dispatched to Rymans for chalk so she can make that vision a reality. The pub chalkboard is intended to appeal to as many potential customers as possible and in doing so sets no one’s heart alight. It is focus-grouped spontaneity. It is Coldplay, Wagamama, rooftop bars, bragging about your spiralizer. It is a moustache tattoo on your finger, your invisible bookshelf, the death of your dreams. Its human equivalent is a marketing executive at V festival in novelty sunglasses, clutching a Sipsmith gin, waiting for Calvin Harris to come on. It is the death of all original thought. It needs to end now. |